Departments give you a way to organize your staff by their responsibilities. There are a variety of items in the software that can be assigned to a department, notifying each user in the department of the task, phone call, email, etc. that needs to get done. These items will appear on the home page for each user within the assigned department. Users can be assigned to one or more departments. See Assigning Staff to Departments below.  

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SECURITY GROUPS AND DEPARTMENTS? Use Departments to group your staff by their role and then assign tasks and emails to a department as well as an individual user. Departments are created in Maintenance > General (Studio) > Departments. Assign your staff to a Security Group to define their security level, allowing you to control access to various parts of the software for a group of users. Security groups are set up in Maintenance > General (Studio) > Security Groups. See also: Setting up Security

Setting Up Departments

1. Go to Maintenance > General (Studio) > Departments to open your department list. 
   
                 

2. The following editing options are available, either on the ribbon or directly from the grid:

   • Add a Department - Click New on the ribbon, or type directly into the first line of the grid. If you want to add a department at a specific spot in the list, use the Insert tool. 

   • Modify a Department - Double-click the department and then edit the description.

   • Delete a Department - Highlight the department and click Delete on the ribbon.

   • Change the Order - Highlight a department and use the Move Up and Move Down tools on the ribbon.

   • Show on Calendar - Allow a department to be visible on the Calendar so that all Users within the selected department's schedule will be visible.

   • Make a Department Inactive - Check the Inactive box to hide a department you are no longer using (but may not want to delete).  

3. You may also want to:

   • Hide Inactive Departments - Click Hide Inactive on the ribbon to hide (or reveal) any inactive departments.

   • Print the List - Click Print on the ribbon to generate a printed report of your departments.

   • Export the List to Excel - Click Export to Excel to export an Excel file that you can download.  

4. Close the window when finished.

Assigning Staff to Departments

By Department

1. Go to Maintenance > General (Studio) > Departments to open your list of departments.

2. Double-click to open a department.

3. Select a user in the left panel and click ">" to move the user to the Users Selected list on the right.
   
   

4. To remove a user from the department, just select the user on the right side and use the "<" button to move them back to the left. Tip: Move all users from one side to the other using the ">>" or "<<" buttons.

5. Click OK to save the changes to the department.

6. Close the department list when finished.

By User

1. Go to Maintenance > General (Studio) > Users to open your list of users. See also: Setting up Users
   
   

2. Double-click to open a user.

3. Click on the Departments tab.

4. Select a department in the left panel and click the ">" button to move it to the Departments Selected list on the right.
   
   

5. To remove a user from a department, just click the department on the right side and use the "<" button to move it back to the left. Tip: Move all departments from one side to the other using the ">>" or "<<" buttons.

6. Click OK to save changes to the user.

7. Close your user list when finished.

Using Departments

Here are some of the ways you can use departments in your business:

• Create department notifications - Use the Notification Center to create notifications for departments (as well as for individual users). Department notifications will be displayed on the home page of each member of the department. See also: Notification Center

• Assign tasks to a department - When you assign a task to a department, every member of the department will be notified of the task and will see it in the task list on their home page. Sorting the Tasks hub by "Assigned to Department" is a way to quickly see all the tasks assigned to any one department. See also: Managing Tasks and Tasks Hub

• Assign emails or phone calls to a department - You can assign emails, phone calls, and text messages to a department for follow up. Each member of the department will see what's due on their home page. The Messages and Calls hubs can both be sorted by "Assigned to Department." See also: Communication, Messages Hub, and Calls Hub